


Need

by mommyisageek



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 12:36:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132724
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mommyisageek/pseuds/mommyisageek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He knows the answer.  There’s really only one option.  But that doesn’t mean he’s willing to risk it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Need

His mind goes into overdrive the moment he realizes the Slitheen have control of Downing Street and her life is probably in more peril than he’s yet to put her in (and, to be honest, that’s been quite a bit. He hasn’t been as careful as he really rather should). He flips through options and throws out one after another after another because every single one puts her in danger. 

And he has to keep her safe. He knows what living without her is like. He’s not willing to do it again.

Selfish. The word keeps popping into his head and he knows it’s true. Completely selfish.

And, at this moment, he isn’t ashamed of it.

He lost everyone and everything because he didn’t have a choice in the matter and to keep the universe safe. He lost his home. He lost his family. Right now, the only thing tethering him to sanity, it seems, is he hand there to grab when he needs it and feels like he’s going to fall apart.

He can’t just let her go, can he?

And then they’re in that room Rose’s mother is on the phone asking him if Rose is safe. If she’s going always going to be safe.

And he cannot honestly answer yes.

Because he has to save the world. It’s his job. He took it as his responsibility, years ago, and now, he’s the only one left to do it. He’s the only one left to keep time under control.

But there aren’t many options.

He only knows of one. He’s known of an answer to this since the moment it started but he isn’t willing to do it.

He’s wracking his brain for anything else. Anything else that might be an option and over and over he comes back to the same thing. His brain is working so hard and on overtime that it’s starting to give him a headache, and that takes a lot.

“If we could just get out of here,” Rose says plainly. 

“There’s a way out,” he says before he thinks about it and regrets it a moment later. Because now she’s going to make him tell her.

“What?”

“There’s always been a way out,” he says, half defeated.

“Then why don’t you use it?” He doesn’t answer Rose. He can’t. He might end up admitting what he’s tried so hard to keep from her.

“Because I cannot guarantee your daughter will be safe.” He tells Jackie instead, because maybe he won’t spill everything to her.

Because when Rose looks at him, he knows exactly what she’ll say.

“Do it,” she says in his mind just as she does in front of him.

“You don’t even know what it is. You’d just let me?” Of course she would. She trusts him, with her life, on a daily basis.

“Yeah.”

“Please, Doctor. Please. She’s my daughter. She’s just a kid.” Jackie is pleading with him somewhere in the background but he can’t take his eyes off his Rose.

“Don’t you think I know that?” He says, trying to remind Rose – his amazing, courageous Rose – because she seems to have forgotten how fragile she is. And she has no clue how much he needs her. “Because this is my life, Jackie. It’s not fun, it’s not smart, it’s just standing up and making the decision because nobody else will.”

“Then what are you waiting for?” She challenges him and he closes his eyes, if only for a moment.

Because he knows.

He knows what it’s like to be without her and he wants nothing to do with it again.

Rose knows, he thinks, that he traveled without her, at least for awhile. He hadn’t intended to, at first. He met her very quickly – as soon as he woke up as, well, him, the TARDIS had dropped him in London in the middle of the Nestene Consciousness invasion. He had, originally, thought she dropped him here to save the city but later, on his own again, he realized she had dropped him here on purpose.

She had dropped him in the place where he would find Rose.

He needs her desperately, but would never ever tell her as much.

She had asked someone, one of the nut jobs, about him during those first hours. Trying to sort out who he was. He’d seen the websites. He had, of course, been curious what was being said about him and had looked to see.

This Clive person did his homework.

She’d said no, initially. In those short hours he had known, immediately, that he wanted her to come with him. Couldn’t explain, entirely, why.

But he never forced travel on anyone, not if he could help it.

So she said no. He left it at that.

And he travelled.

But there was something missing. 

He went to places he could help people, save people. After so much death – Gallifrey, Skaro, enemies, friends, family…his whole life – he just wanted to save people. Over and over he did what he could.

And over and over it didn’t fill the void.

He never took anyone else with him because they were never Rose. Alone on the TARDIS, he goes over those few hours over and over in his head, wondering what he could have done differently, what he could have said differently.

He is empty and he knows, somehow (whether he wants to admit it or not), that there is no one in the universe that can fill the void but her.

He doesn’t know how long he travels before he finally realizes it’s useless without her, but when he does, he spends another few days just making sure he has it right before he goes back (it takes him a couple of tries) and appears, to her just seconds later, with a “Did I mention that it travels in time?”

This time, she doesn’t hesitate and suddenly, Rose is on the TARDIS and off they go.

As usual when it comes to these things, he doesn’t want to admit just how much he needs her and doesn’t, at least not to her. But he panics, ever so slightly, when she’s in danger. He marvels and how happy he can make her when he shows her new things.

And he is amazed by how quickly she accepts their role as “saviors”. How quick she realized that the world and the universe are more important than her own life.

But not to him. He’s not willing to risk it.

“I could save the world but lose you.”

But in the end, it’s not his choice. And she wouldn’t let him risk the world for her sake if he tried (well, if she knew). She’s amazing and strong and courageous and resourceful and finds a way to get them through it anyway.

Because she’s Rose. His Rose. And he’s never going to let her go


End file.
